Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, founders of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, recently announced a bold new biomedical research initiative. They pledged $3 billion dollars towards an ambitious goal of preventing, curing or managing all diseases by the end of the century.

Dr. Huda Zoghbi, director of the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s Hospital was recognized as one of the invaluable members of the Scientific Advisory Board for this initiative.

Zuckerberg praised Zoghbi for her “really honest and direct organizational feedback on how to structure organizations that do research and commented that her advice and support had been very insightful and super helpful” in setting up this initiative.”

“I owe my deep gratitude to Priscilla and Mark for recognizing the importance of basic science research and the profound impact scientific discoveries can have on mankind,” Zoghbi said. “The treatments and cures of tomorrow will only be discovered through the rigorous scientific research taking place today. This initiative is going to be so exciting and motivating for the next generation of scientists given the approach and the opportunities. Priscilla’s and Mark’s vision, bringing together diverse disciplines to collaborate on previously intractable disorders and disease, will benefit us all.”

Dr. Cori Bargmann, a leading neuroscientist at Rockefeller University in New York, will lead the science component. The first project of this initiative will be the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, an independent research center in San Francisco that will bring together engineers, computer scientists, biologists, physicists, chemists and others to design tools to tackle some of the major deadliest diseases of our times.